


Wish They Wouldn't

by Aurumite



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: AU Where Lyon Survived, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, Kink Fill, M/M, Nothing here is healthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:21:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8375512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurumite/pseuds/Aurumite
Summary: "Ephraim, if killing me meant I could have this, I'd let you do it a thousand times."





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had this half-written and hiding in a dark corner of my computer from the time I heard an argument for power-hungry dom!lyon and bought it in a hot second. But I seem to have a lot of secret enablers lurking so I finished it up in the spirit of the week... so here. A vague "yes somehow lyon lived and he and ephraim are Getting It On" au to fill a vague "super messed up ephlyon" kink meme prompt. And also Day 2 of Magvel week: "Regrets." The theme of this story, or the sentiment of the author after posting?

**I. Exhibition**

“You know,” Lyon begins, “what He made me say back then...everything about forcing the King of Renais to his knees...I’d always thought of it more along these lines.”

He smiles at the shudder that ripples down Ephraim’s bare, muscular back. They stand in Ephraim’s own bedchambers—or rather, Lyon stands, and Ephraim kneels before him, stripped to the waist.

The knights who stand outside the carved oak doors, green and red as a holly tree together, are the only ones who know he's here, and they've been sworn to silence. Lyon vaguely remembers them from—from before. They never address him, only letting Ephraim in, or occasionally Eirika in the afternoons, who shuts the door behind her but thumbs the doorknob while she and her brother speak. It's been a fortnight now, since the return to Renais. During the day Ephraim rallies his starving people with his strong hands and loud voice. He keeps Lyon hidden in his chambers to read the same books of strategy over and over while he decides what to do with him. As long as the sun is up, he is lord and master of his castle, and of the war prisoner he keeps locked in his bedchamber like something dangerous, something shameful.

But not at night.

The first time they didn't discuss it: they simply collided, as they'd always been destined to, until one bent and snapped. Since then, Lyon must’ve asked a thousand times if Ephraim is truly all right with their peculiar arrangement. He keeps insisting that he is. (Guilt, Lyon assumes. Anything to make it up to the poor tragic Prince of Grado. He’ll very willingly endure biting and beating and yanked fistfuls of hair if it means forgiveness for all the citizens he’d hurt when he invaded. He’ll gladly be penetrated, no matter how roughly, if it means atoning for the way he did it first, shoving his spear into Lyon’s chest, through his heart and out his back.) He doesn’t want Lyon to look upon him with envy and loathing any longer, Lyon is sure. He wants Lyon to finally defeat him, if that’s what it takes. He wants Lyon to love himself the way Ephraim always has loved him.

King Ephraim is repentant, thoughtful, and just. He is a good man.

(Too good for Lyon, really.)

Even in his wildest fantasies, he hadn’t expected to _enjoy_ this so much. By now he's past surprising himself as he runs a finger down Ephraim's bent spine and delights in the sight of him shivering again. His friend still has his face tipped down to the thick rug on the stone floor. In front of his people he's a strong king, and in front of his sister he's a good brother, but when he's alone with Lyon, Ephraim comes apart at the seams, helpless, dependent and trembling. In fucking—in just this one thing—Ephraim needs him, not the other way around (or so he can tell himself).

“Are you ready?” he asks, tracing his fingertips down Ephraim’s face and tilting up his chin. Renais’s king only raises an eyebrow.

“I’m always ready. Would you like to feel the proof?”

“Be serious, Ephraim. You know what I mean. Are you very sure?”

Ephraim affirms it by moving first, pressing his mouth to the bulge beneath Lyon’s robes: hidden by heavy fabric, but he knows by now exactly where it will be. His breath is hot and inviting and Lyon wants to shiver, but instead he strikes Ephraim’s insolent mouth with the back of his hand. It’s more to knock him back, to hear the little crack of skin against skin, than to cause any pain.

“We’re not animals, nor youths fumbling to fuck before we get caught. Behave like it. Strip me properly, and take your time. And don’t act without my permission again.”

There’s an old, mischievous smile on Ephraim’s face as he rises to obey, starting with the robe, pressing soft kisses to Lyon’s neck and chest as he begins to unlace his tunic. It’s so compelling that Lyon doesn’t even consider punishing it away.

“What are you thinking?” Lyon asks.

“‘Youths fumbling to fuck,’” he quotes against the hollow of his throat. “Poetic. How like you.”

“Perhaps I should take speech away from you tonight.”

But he can't help but say it fondly. Since it's not a true threat, Ephraim keeps talking as he lowers himself to his knees again, lips drifting down Lyon’s stomach and across his hip bones, fingers traveling up his thighs:

“That could have been us, once, you know. I used to think about it when you tutored me in the library.”

“Scandalous.” Lyon runs his fingers back through Ephraim's thick hair, biting his lip. Ephraim looks up at him so _adoringly_. He's so glad to have Lyon back (so glad to not have to carry the guilt of his death with him, that's all—Lyon pushes the thought away and talks just to hear himself talk). “Even then, you wanted it? So virile, so desperate, daydreaming of getting your hands beneath my clothes so I'd moan and stop reading to you.”

“To think, it would've worked.” Ephraim's clever tongue is out now, eyes hidden by his long lashes as he traces his trail of kisses. “I used to wonder if you’d be opposed. What if, once you were moaning, I bent you over the table and made you shout my name? It really echoed in there, didn’t it. I bet the whole castle would’ve heard.”

It’s too aggressive a thing to say, and Ephraim’s eyes are gleaming because he knows it. Lyon unfastens his breeches himself, one-handed, anchoring the other hand in Ephraim’s hair and forcing his head back.

“Let’s not forget your role,” he says. “Suck.”

Ephraim laughs but obeys, the sound cut off when he lets Lyon guide him down his shaft. Lyon wants to stay firm but the moment Ephraim begins to work him over, painting hot, wet stripes from base to tip, he can't keep his eyes from fluttering shut and his grip from growing slack. Ephraim takes him deeper each time, tongue rolling around him in a flourish each time he pulls away. He always has been very physically talented; why should giving head be any different? Isn't there anything Ephraim can't do? Lyon whimpers, knees already week.

(And what's worse,) Ephraim is clearly enjoying giving the favour, pace quickening with Lyon’s breath, so suddenly it isn’t enough. Lyon tangles his other hand in Ephraim’s hair too and yanks him forward, forcing himself into his throat. Ephraim’s fingers scrabble against the backs of his legs as he gags; the sound tears a moan from Lyon's throat.

He should pause. He should make sure Ephraim can breathe. But it's so good, too good, the warmth and wetness of Ephraim's mouth, the tightness as he tries to swallow—he can't help himself. He moves, harsh, unyielding (because better, so much better than the pleasure welling up in his stomach is watching proud Ephraim of Renais helplessly kneel there and take it while his face is being fucked). In his ecstasy, Lyon's grip is so tight he doesn't think Ephraim could break away now if he tried. His breath comes ragged. Keeping his composure is a feat long past his ability.

“Eph—Ephraim—saints above, if—if killing me meant I could have this...I’d let you do it a thousand times.”

Ephraim sucks harder, almost rebelliously, but he can’t rage about what a horrific thing that is to say with Lyon’s cock down his throat, and the pressure grows so intense that Lyon can't manage more words in any case. Ephraim's breath shudders out through his nose. Lyon watches as he withdraws a hand to palm himself and pulls out at once.

“I wouldn’t think about it, if I were you,” he manages in a low, pleasant voice through heavy breaths. “I’ll _never_ let you come if you touch yourself before you finish pleasing me. We learned that lesson, didn’t we.”

Ephraim nods at the memory, and Lyon smiles. What a long night that had been. Ephraim had tears in his eyes when he’d finally been allowed to climax.

“Don't you want me to be good to you, Ephraim? Don't you want me to forgive you? Let's go back to the way things were.”

Ephraim's hand returns to where it was, clutching for stability on Lyon’s leg. Lyon slides back into his mouth with a little force and much less ceremony.

Ephraim looks beautiful like this, high cheekbones flushed, chest rising with slow air as he concentrates. Saliva trickles from the corner of his mouth. He gags again. (That does it, _yes—_ ) It isn’t long at all before the pleasure becomes too much, and Lyon reaches his climax quite suddenly, pulling out just in time. He groans out Ephraim’s name through his teeth, over and over, but holds him fast by the hair as he finishes on his face.  

He wonders at himself as he tries to catch his breath. He’s never deliberately come on Ephraim before. But he likes it, likes the way it marks him, likes the way it clings to his long nose and his eyelashes and his perfect lips, which his tongue instinctively darts out to lick clean.  

Ephraim doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much, though he swallows what his tongue finds. He glares up at Lyon through his sweaty fringe and the mess on his face. He’s indignant at this new slight, defiant (not humiliated in the least). Lyon thinks he could get hard again from that alone. Nothing ever turns him on more than when Ephraim makes that insufferably arrogant face.

“Oh, Ephraim,” he sighs, reaching down to brush a sticky lock of hair behind his ear. “I’m going to break you tonight. You’re going to come apart for me. I swear it.”

Ephraim grins then and nips tiredly at his fingers. His voice comes out hoarse, fucked raw: “Do your worst. I can handle anything.”

He knows how attractive he is when he spouts such nonsense, but it’s still out of line to be so brazen. Lyon kneels too, grasping his chin hard, his own come still hot against the pad of his thumb.

“Was it worth it, Ephraim? Your gallant line? Sometimes I wonder if you _want_ to be punished.”

Ephraim knows that Lyon always makes good on his word, so this time he stays silent as Lyon reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief. With practiced fingers, he knots it into a gag and ties it tight.

“Too much?” he murmurs into Ephraim’s ear, and receives a short shake of his head. “Good.” He bites the rim savagely and Ephraim’s grunt is so muffled he hardly hears it. “If you can behave, you know that I’ll reward you. I missed you so much...I'll do anything you want if you'll just keep loving me.”

Ephraim's blue eyes are beseeching him to take those words back, because they sound pathetic. ( _We'll see who's pathetic._ ) Lyon traces the hard length of him through the front of his breeches with his fingertips.

“Behave,” he murmurs, but it's too late: Ephraim is aching from sucking him off, from the thought of moving on, and he tries to arch into Lyon's palm. Lyon seizes his wrists and forces his hands behind his back.

“You never can, can you, Ephraim.”  

The rest takes hours. Lyon orders him into his bed and ties his hands to the wooden bedposts, preferring scarves to ropes because they’ll bite into Ephraim but not chafe too badly, and Ephraim never protests at the tightness or how it makes his shoulders strain, though Lyon is careful to ask. He’s careful opening him too, gingerly stretching deeper and wider, always surprised with how he can’t ever manage to be rough with this part. Once they’ve started he has no issue biting or scratching or even drawing blood with whatever's closest at hand, but his fingers themselves, inside, flesh against flesh—he only wants it to be good. He likes watching the discomfort slowly ease from Ephraim’s face, melting to pleasure and then impatience and then desperation as he rubs the right spot. It makes him feel skilled in a way even dark magic never could.

It might have something to do with the way Ephraim pulls fruitlessly at his bonds until he’s gleaming with sweat. All that muscle Lyon admired and coveted and resented, and it’s absolutely useless when Lyon is inside him. All that strength is _nothing_ against his thin and gentle fingers. He can play Ephraim like an instrument.

But when he’s ready, cock leaking, head tossing, Lyon takes him hard.

His endurance is nothing compared to Ephraim’s and never has been, but it makes his patience legendary. He’s in no hurry. For a long time he teases him, stroking where he needs it while he thrusts, only to pull out and take his hand away when Ephraim begins to moan and buck.

“I’m sorry,” he says sweetly, and bends down to suck a bruise onto one narrow hip. “Were you close?”

There’s a growl through the gag. It has no effect. Lyon keeps him on the edge, always stopping when Ephraim gets close again, using the pauses to mark him until his skin is peppered with bites and scratches. Ephraim can take a lot, can take it for a long time, but after a few rounds of this his eyes are wild and a steady stream of something—either supplications or curses—sounds from behind the cloth in his mouth. The slightest touch makes his entire body arc.

“What do you want, Ephraim?” Lyon asks innocently. His answer is vehement but sadly incomprehensible. Lyon lets him squirm another moment before he slides up, straddling his chest, to untie the gag.

“I want you,” Ephraim says immediately. Lyon decides not to punish the decisiveness or forcefulness of his voice. He's a born leader and a practiced general; he's always spoken this way. Lyon just tilts his head, watches Ephraim watch how his hair falls over his shoulder.

“And here I am. You'd dare ask the gods for more?”

“Lyon, Lyon, I want—”

“I like how you say my name.”

“Lyon!”

“Beg for it.”

Ephraim glares again for just half a second. He hates begging. Sometimes he refuses entirely and has to be shown who's in charge. But it seems he’s too desperate now because he’s straining toward Lyon, turning his head to kiss Lyon’s hand on his pillow, which is all he can reach:

“Please, I can’t take it any longer. Finish me. Please.”

“Please, what?”

 _Emperor,_ Lyon expects to hear. _Milord. Master._ But Ephraim is either too uncreative or too genuine for that.

“Please, my dear friend, my very dearest.”

Lyon melts. He slides down and pushes in again, one last time, pleasuring Ephraim with his hand while he ruts. It only takes a moment before Ephraim peaks hard with a shout, spilling over his stomach and Lyon’s hand, and that’s enough to send Lyon over too in a hot, bright, almost maddening wave of delight.

It’s over. He lies against Ephraim’s chest for a moment to catch his breath.

“You're so strong,” he murmurs. “I'm always so impressed with you.”

“Good, since you're the one I want to impress.”

Ephraim looks exhausted but he's grinning. Lyon kisses him tenderly and then pushes off to grab the washcloth from the basin. He cleans Ephraim first, thoroughly and gently, before he stands to clean himself and blow the candles out.

When he returns to bed he helps Ephraim tuck himself under the blankets and gathers him into his arms for another long, slow kiss. When they part he holds him against his shoulder and strokes his hair without saying anything for a while, and just enjoys how Ephraim’s warm arms wrap tight around his waist.

“That was wonderful,” he finally murmurs, and feels Ephraim nod. “You’re so, so good at that….you’re so good at everything, really.” He feels Ephraim smile against his skin. He does so enjoy having his large ego stroked, but Lyon truly means it. “I can't believe it.”

“Believe which part?”

“That someone as incredible as you could still love someone like me.”

But this isn’t about him. After everything Ephraim has just done for him, Lyon switches the focus away again, letting the hand in his hair drift down to rub his neck and broad shoulders. Ephraim moans a little so he shifts him over his chest, the better to massage him with both hands.

“You are everything to me,” Lyon whispers. “Let me take care of you now.”  

When his fingers have lulled Ephraim nearly to sleep, he rolls him off, so that he can press gentle kisses to his lips and cheeks and tell him sweet nothings—but to Lyon they’re everything, and completely sincere. He tells Ephraim how brave he is, and how gorgeous. He professes his love a dozen more times. His hands map out his face and then his chest, very gentle over the scratches he left, and before he knows it they’re embracing and kissing again, slow and soft.

Maybe he’s still dead after all, he thinks. This certainly feels like Heaven.

But in the middle of the night he knows it’s real. He knows because they’re holding each other again, sweating again, from the nightmares they woke each other from: his of a woman rotting, a black fly escaping her mouth as her lips roll to form the word _darling_ ; Ephraim’s of something he refuses to speak about. After a moment Ephraim leaves the bed, throws on his clothes, and goes to check on Eirika.

Lyon thinks they should fuck again when he returns but neither of them can find the will. They just hold each other and restlessly await dawn.

 

**II. Anyone Else**

Something tells Lyon this isn’t going to last for very long. He can't spend the rest of his life in a bedchamber, and even if he could, Ephraim is king now. (And that’s Lyon's own fault.) He’ll need to marry soon, and have heirs. Eirika will, too. Lyon knows he has no right to be jealous, not of either of them, but he is. He’s jealous and he’s frightened. What will happen to him, when he can’t be Ephraim’s any longer?

“You’re wringing your hands,” Ephraim notes when he’s back in his rooms for the night, after his many duties. They’re things Lyon remembers doing well, but he can’t be of much use now, not as the secret that he is. “You haven’t done that since…” He hesitates. “Since before.”

“I’ve a lot to think about.”

Ephraim says nothing and begins to ready for bed. To anyone else it might seem callous or uninterested, but Lyon knows the silence is simply Ephraim’s way of saying he’s ready to listen, the movement his assurance that there is no pressure to talk.

“Ephraim, I... What am I to you?”

Again, the king doesn’t speak. To anyone else it might seem like he’s thinking hard on a thorough and considerate answer. And again, Lyon knows the truth. The silence means that even Ephraim doesn’t know. Even Ephraim can’t tell him. Lyon’s particularly cruel that night, once his lover (dare he call him that?) has disrobed them both.

He’s just so frustrated. The country he loved is in ruins. The woman he should have loved gives him brittle smiles and doesn’t hold his hand any longer. The man he loves instead is powerless in a way even Lyon never wanted.

And it’s all his fault. Grado was ill-constructed and Eirika was foolish and Ephraim was an ass, but really, it was all Lyon’s fault.

So why does Ephraim hold him so tightly as they kiss, and why is Ephraim’s tongue in his mouth, and his hand in his hair while the other roams his back in broad caresses, and why is he moaning like this is all he wants. Lyon’s hands rove and grope too, but he digs his fingernails in, feeling dizzy and detached and like he could float away at any moment. He cuts the skin over Ephraim’s ribs without quite meaning to (and even his blood is beautiful as it wells up in thin, beaded lines). Ephraim breaks the kiss to hiss in pain.  

“Spare me,” Lyon says coldly. “You’d stab me with Siegmund itself but you can’t bear a little scratch like this?”

Ephraim’s winces, but Lyon feels his cock throb against him too at the words. He feels much the same: at once both aroused and ashamed. Lyon lowers his eyes to the ground and mutters,

“We’re sick.”

Ephraim only tilts his chin back up and kisses him again. To anyone else it might seem like he doesn’t care, but Lyon knows he does, and this is simply his way of covering it up.

  


**III. Interlude**

They start to discuss what to do with him. The suggestion of “finding” him and putting him back on Grado’s throne comes up more than once. It seems plausible. Lyon loved his people dearly, and they, him. Everyone believed the war to be his father’s fault. Perhaps they would accept him back with open arms as their sacrificial lamb, if Ephraim and Eirika and Knoll and Duessel tell all their stories just right.

But it would redouble Grado's hatred for Ephraim. And it would mean Lyon would have to leave him. Foregoing their trysts entirely, seeing him only once every few months—or every few _years_ —for business. It would mean increased tensions between the people of Grado and the people of Renais, perhaps escalating into even more violence. The only thing that might ease the pressure is a strategic marriage between Grado’s potential emperor and Renais’s queen, and all three have said a firm no to that plan.

“I am sorry,” Lyon tells Eirika softly the next time they’re alone, supping in Ephraim's rooms while Ephraim tends to an emergency. (Bandits raiding by the border; he must re-organize where he has dispatched his thin guard for the people’s safety; the killing never quite seems to end.) It's a circular table of polished wood, set for two to avoid suspicion, but it feels empty without the three of them taking up space. “I tell Ephraim all the time, but...I never have the courage to say it to you.”

“I forgave you from the first,” she says, just as gently.

“But you don’t approve of any of this.”

Ephraim has told her, he’s sure; he tells her _everything._ The twins have always been so damned odd that way, and that’s why Eirika won’t look him in the eye anymore.

“It isn’t that,” she insists. “I just worry for him.”

“I don’t want to cause him any more pain, Eirika.”

“All those bruises on his neck don’t hurt him, then, I suppose?”

Her voice is pleasant, her face straight as she sips her wine. Lyon stares at her for a moment. When did she get to be so sharp-tongued? (But he knows that’s his fault too.)

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he says finally. She’s always been too sweet, too naive. She probably still imagines love to be painless.

It bothers him that they are still a trio somehow, even in the private life he has with Ephraim. That Eirika still has some modicum of control. The night before returns to his memory: Lyon pounding into Ephraim, absolutely lost in how he feels, unable to control his cries, bending forward and biting his neck to muffle it—and how Ephraim told him, “Not too high.”

Because of Eirika. Because the marks she can see above his collar distress her. Less because she envisions her brother fucking, Lyon thinks, and more because she doesn’t like the idea of Lyon’s teeth so close to his throat and all its veins.

Ephraim shouldn’t like it either. He shouldn’t. But he gasped in pleasure when Lyon’s mouth moved lower, biting until he broke the skin at the crook of his neck, obliging his feelings yet punishing him for daring to give a command.

Even Eirika, somehow, is still stronger than Lyon is. He is ashamed of it. And because he knows how wrong that is, how admirable and determined and talented she is, how many times she almost lost the man he's taking and how afraid she must have been, he feels ashamed of being ashamed.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again. “I wish I could make things return to the way they used to be. But I can’t.”

It’s more personal than he told himself he should be with her until she’s had more time to heal, so he’s relieved when she murmurs, “I feel the same.” And then she rests her hand on his, for the first time in so long, and Lyon has to close his eyes because this is pain too, pain he’s unaccustomed to, so gentle that it hurts.

 

 

**IV. Switch (Again)**

Their agreement was silent; never fully discussed, but very mutual: to keep their pain and their insults and their grievances to the bedroom, where they could turn them to pleasure and hold each other after. It’s something that works well for both of them, Lyon thinks. Ephraim is so physical and he is so emotional. So emotional that Ephraim’s ability to bury everything baffles and fascinates him. He begins to prod for weaknesses during their nights together, though he’s sad to discover that in a dusty corner of his mind, he already knows them.

Feelings of inadequacy. Irreconcilable regrets. Pride. The only one Lyon can’t understand first-hand is having and caring for a sister.

He doesn’t really realize it until the night he and Eirika ate alone, long after she leaves. He’s sitting on the edge of Ephraim’s bed with Ephraim between his legs. Ephraim kisses the inside of his bare knee and then skips everything else to start mouthing his cock, brash tongue laving Lyon in ways that almost make him lose his concentration. It almost hurts, with so little warning. As always, Ephraim is too impatient. His punishment simply comes to Lyon, so clearly he wonders why he never considered it earlier.

(He knows why.)

“So eager,” Lyon sighs, and Ephraim looks up suspiciously at the drama in his tone. “It’s not as enjoyable when you don't build it up, you know.” He pauses. “I bet Eirika would be more careful. I bet Eirika would really—”

Ephraim pins him back so hard he loses his breath, and struggles for air through a bruising kiss. Ephraim's weight is crushing him into the bed. This was the aggression he’d always imagined when they were boys; it’s interesting to learn that it’s still there within him.

“Don’t you ever bring Eirika into this,” Ephraim growls when he breaks away, and Lyon smirks even though he’s breathless.

“Jealous?”

Obviously, but Ephraim shakes his head. “You’ve no right. After everything she was put through—”

“Peace, Ephraim.” Lyon breaks the act a bit with the softness of his voice, reaches up to touch his face. His sharp jaw softens and he leans into Lyon’s palm. “You’re such a good brother, do you know that? I would never do anything to hurt her, or remind her of the things He made me say. Nor do I intend to make you doubt my feelings for you. Please don’t worry. I suppose I just…”

He feels a flush burn across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Their play is fully over now, and from the way Ephraim is studying him so sharply, the way he used to study Duessel’s lance, he knows it too. Lyon feels uneasy. They don’t talk about these things when they’re not fucking; they’re not willing to bring it up without some kind of balm to soothe it. He suddenly wishes that he were dressed and that Ephraim would close those piercing blue eyes.

But he has to be honest. After all the lies he spoke back then, both forced and of his own free will, he must be honest now.

“I got carried away,” he admits quietly. “I wanted to upset you and I wanted to see you...angry. With me. I wanted you to hurt me, for once.”

“I’ve done quite enough of that,” Ephraim says hotly, but Lyon shakes his head hard.

“No, not enough at all. You did what you had to do, then. I love being with you but I hate that you blame yourself; I hate that you try to make it up for me. I deserve to be hurt more often, don’t I, after everything I did?”

“It wasn’t you,” Ephraim insists, for the umpteenth time, and kisses him so gently that tears spring to his eyes.

“It was! It really was! You know that!” He’s about to panic but it ebbs when Ephraim kisses him again, more firmly. He’s always so firm. It’s so easy to feel secure around him.

“It could just as easily have been me,” he says as he pulls away just slightly. Their lips are still brushing. Lyon only shakes his head again. Not Ephraim, not his perfect, noble, courageous Ephraim. He’s too strong. Ephraim sighs and he feels it splay across his face.

“Well. If you...if you want to switch, tonight, if that’s _really_ what you want, I…”

“I think it is,” Lyon confesses in a small voice. Ephraim pushes up a little to get a better look at his face in the darkness. He’s still over Lyon, pressing him back to the white sheets, but the confidence required for a dominant role is unusually absent from his face. He looks concerned. Like Lyon will break (again) beneath his hands, like he’ll get carried away with his incredible strength or impossible foolishness and Lyon will say (again) that he hates him.

“l’ll be fine,” Lyon insists. Ephraim doesn’t budge so he slips back into their little game, easy as a second skin, a cruel smile spreading across his lips. He pinches Ephraim’s arm a little to warn him of the shift.

“I don’t mean to keep dragging her into this, but...you know Eirika could do it. Eirika, perfect as she is, could—”

Another hard kiss slams his skull into the mattress. Lyon wakes the next morning with flushed, chafed wrists and so many love bites it looks like he’s contracted some terrible illness. He admires the work in the mirror; presses two fingers to a deep blue bruise on his thigh. It hurts. He presses a second time. A third.  

“Get dressed,” Ephraim snaps from his bed. There’s the light of adrenaline in his eyes, a panic Lyon only saw during battle. He can’t believe he’s done this (again) to his gentle little friend.

For a moment—just a brief moment—a dark part of Lyon is humiliated by this, by being seen as so weak and fragile, unable to handle the treatment he gives so often to Ephraim. He wants to remind Ephraim what he’s capable of. He’s appalled at himself for it. He dresses quickly, goes to the bedside when all his little hurts are covered, and kisses Ephraim for a long, long time.

“I liked it,” he assures, but Ephraim is never rough with him again, and Lyon never asks him to be.

  


**V. Smile**

The next night, afterward, Ephraim seems to need more care from him, and Lyon is happy to give it. He holds him close until the candles are all burned out, wrapped protectively around him, running his fingers through his hair and giving him the occasional kiss. Sometimes Ephraim moans sleepily and it makes Lyon’s heart race—not lust, but a fierce joy at helping him relax, making him feel good. Steadily, Lyon can feel his breath slow against his neck. Only when Ephraim is fully asleep does he allow his hand to stop its soothing stroking and his eyes to close. But before he can drift off himself, a thought strikes him and his eyes shoot open again.  

“Ephraim,” he says. There’s something he needs, something he absolutely can’t sleep without. He prods him slightly. “Ephraim.”

Blearily, his eyes open. “Mm?”

“Smile for me?”

It isn’t an order. It’s hardly even a request. Lyon feels like he’s begging for it, like he’s an addict, and sweet relief shoots through his veins when Ephraim sleepily obliges. It’s the best shape he makes with his lips: better than the way his teeth catch the bottom one when he says the V in “I love you”, better than how they mold so comfortingly to Lyon’s own, better even than the O when they’re wrapped around his cock. Ephraim’s smile is dazzling, blinding. Lyon returns it before sleep claims them both. And they wake in the morning (though Lyon wished they wouldn’t).

 

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely the sentiment of the author after posting.


End file.
